An "Almost Secret" Game Project...

from Sins Forums

Hi everyone.

At 53, I am not getting any younger and while I lack any actual programming skill I have played strategy simulation board games since the age of seven.  I have made my own games since I was young and at one time  was briefly a partner in a comic/game store in the 80's.  A few years later I actually applied for a patent for a board-card game I designed (and even got some investors for).

But since I was fifteen, I have had "the game" I have always wanted to make.  I knew back then it would require a computer to really work (and this was well before a public internet) and technology then didn't exist to do it.  Still, I worked on paper in my spare time or when I was bored and by the time I had moved to Michigan about 25 years ago, I had two copy paper boxes stacked full of of hand written, college-lined, two-sided paper notes, descriptions, formulas, illustrations and diagrams.

At 27, was about to get married and I made a decision to set the game idea aside and work on my "career"--it was the "practical" and "responsible"  thing to do after all.  In one of my first  jobs working for an attorney, I actually solved a business problem that had stumped him and his partner for over two years by making a game of it and creating the rules and play instructions for employees to follow.  That presentation became their standard model for evaluating certain cases and a version of it still is to this day.

So time went by, I got more experience and confidence in business, began a couple of struggling ones of my own and picked up even more skills--primarily financing my way with sales and marketing positions.  Children came, then grandchildren and all the emergencies and crisis that come with having a family.  I got older and now I and my wife have begun to slow down some. 

I don't have much of a "bucket list".  My biggest thing was I always wanted to see close up pictures of every planet in the solar system before I died.  For me, that includes Pluto and in two years we'll be getting that.  I've always though of writing at least one book and if I can overcome procrastination and a desire for perfection I am going to give that one a shot too.

But the last thing on my list is that one game I always wanted to make.  Before now, it was just a dream--I knew I would have to go to college for programming or win the lottery to hire a programmer to even get it close to what I wanted.  But with things like Kickstarter out now it just might be possible for me to work up to a simple, workable, online playable, persistent universe, multiplayer game.  I can't compete with the "big boys" (and for me that means any publisher out there who's already put a game out) but I can make a unique game.

I can't share the details (or even a title) here but I can present pieces of the backstory and details of some things.

My goal is just to get things down on paper again for now (and a lot already is) and my hope is that perhaps one or two of you out there might get a glimmer of the bigger picture and want to know more.  In short, this is basically a pre-Kickstarter alpha test to see how some of my concepts and ideas strike people.

So read the tidbits and comment if you like.  Down the road, I may contact some who are interested here and invite them in with a little more privilege.  By necessity, most of what is here will be vague and without a detailed explanation but a few of you smart ones out there may catch a whiff of what it's about.

I'm posting on the Stardock forums because Stardock gave me the privilege of being an Alpha tester on their last Sins of a Solar Empire release.  For me, it was a childhood dream to see my name in a game's credits and I much appreciated that happening here with a game I love.  It also was that very act that made me realize I was not going to be content until I tried to create my own game.  So I blame them for everything.  :)

 

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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

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Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

To start, here's a simple short section in story form of an encounter with one of the possible in-game life-forms.  These life forms while falling into general categories have hundreds of customizable attributes and capabilities in scores of areas that affect everything from technological development to the ability to eat or become sick or use captured alien devices.  I can't say more, but here is a brief, fictional description of an encounter as it might happen on earth today with just one of the game's unique  races...a race that you could customize and hand-tailor in the actual game.

No promises--but if there are questions, I'll try to answer them where I feel I can.

If people are interested--and after they field a guess or two or three, I'll explain what's going on in this scenario.  ;)

_____________________________________________________________________

A sharp, crackling sound came from every nearby light switch and all the bulbs on the office floor suddenly flickered and popped as they dimmed and then winked out. Simultaneously, the temperature of the room dropped rapidly--allowing the now shivering occupants to see their breath in plumes of moist air. Within seconds, their blue lips and faces were encrusted with frosty crystals of ice.

An even greater crackle arose from the room fixtures and every electrical bulb briefly flared and then shattered--leaving a smell of ozone and burning insulation hanging in the frigid air.

At that same moment, each occupant in the room convulsed and fell to the floor--thrashing and flailing their limbs wildly about with every muscle fiercely tensed and eyes rolled back in their heads-- as if they were each being slowly and painfully electrocuted.

Gradually, the spasms subsided and one by one, each occupant arose staggering and then stumbled forward on disjointed legs towards a nearby printer station. With shaking and fumbling hands, they each clumsily grasped a single wooden pencil and then fitfully snatched up sheets of plain white paper from the same desktop.

Dropping on all fours to the floor with their prizes, the vacant faced victims began frantically scribbling back and forth with the edges of their pencils. With each stroke and counter-stroke, more and more of the papers’ surfaces were covered with dark grey smears from the pencils’ leads. When a sheet was fully covered in a solid, uniform black, another sheet was hastily pulled down and the process was begun anew.

Thus began the first alien invasion of earth.

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Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Another account of a lifeform from the game in action against mankind...

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In the deep of night, First Platoon Sergeant Nolan swept his camp perimeter with his multiscan imager.  Radar had picked up motion out in the dark yet thermal showed nothing.  Sweeps for EM also were showing zilch.  Switching to low-light revealed nothing but the windswept rock plain, patchy grass and scattered boulders.

There was no way any sort of mass movement was going on out there--there just wasn't enough cover.  Checking his perimeter seismic logs for activity showed there were a few scattered impacts at the time of the radar hit.  It had to be falling rocks--there wasn't any other credible explanation.

As Nolan was putting the imager down and reaching for his coffee, the radar op shouted out, "Major motion!  230 degrees, 1600 yards!".  Leaving the coffee, the sergeant snatched up his imager and swept the coordinate.  The hair on the back of his neck stood up because this time he heard the rumbling--nothing made that much noise except ground armor, yet, the sound wasn't quite right.

Thermal and EM scans were still blank so once more he shifted to low-light and patched in the perimeter seismic detectors.  Sure enough, the ground sensors were showing a large, moving blob heading directly for his position.  He tuned in the optics and for the first time saw the enemy they had been searching for all this past week.

The enemy was rocks...and lots of them.

Yard wide boulders and smaller, roundish rocks rolled toward camp in a large herd.  It wasn't an avalanche because there was little slope--in fact--they were moving up slope.

Nolan blinked...looked again...and then ordered the 40mm Oerlikon quad to open up on the boulders.  "That will show what's hiding in them." he thought to himself--though damned if he knew how they were making those boulders roll.

The silence was shattered by the long explosion of the quad firing and Nolan cursed as the flash from the first burst zapped his imager--it would take a few minutes for low light viewing to be restored.  With the light of the muzzle flashes, Sergeant Nolan could see shattered stone shards exploding from the dust cloud.  There were no cries, no "spang" of armor ricochets and no secondary explosions. 

Frustrated, he screamed out, "Cease fire!  Cease fire!".  Luckily the gunner was quick to respond and the smoking guns fell silent.  Everyone in the camp was up and armed now--weapons at the ready and trained on the target.  Slowly the dust blew away and revealed--a lot of blown up rocks.

In disbelief, Nolan stepped down from his stand and advanced towards the shards of stone scattered about the crater the quad had dug.  Multiple spotlights illuminated the area now and shouting, "Cover me!" he sprinted forward--determined to catch any hostiles trying to crawl away.  They had gone many a sleepless night and damned  if he was going to let a couple of harassers come in and then crawl out unharmed.

He reached the area and there was still nothing.  No snares or traps were in evidence--and they couldn't have survived the pounding of those Oerlikons at point blank range anyway.  There were also no bodies...no body parts...and no blood trails--nor any pieces of scrap from blown up enemy drones.

The sergeant picked up one of the smooth round stones lying at his feet.  It was just a stone.  As he pondered what that meant, the last thing that passed through his mind was the very stone he had just held in his hand.  He never heard the screams of his men as boulders the size of vehicles dropped from the sky directly overhead onto their camp.

The next morning, a recon team sent out by headquarters found the slaughtered unit--buried under tons of rock in the middle of a flat, open plain.

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Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Posting here to keep tabs on this. Consider me EXTREMELY interested. :grin:

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Hey--I didn't know if anyone would find this out in the boonies!  Welcome sir.  More to follow.

Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Sinperium, reply 9
Hey--I didn't know if anyone would find this out in the boonies!
End of Sinperium's quote

It's not 'the boonies'...it'll be on all of Stardock's sites. [Everything else]....;)

I remember installing Gal Civ just so I could read the credits - people I 'knew' [and apparently there was a 'Jafo' Class spaceship.....] ....;)

 

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

"Set Jafo blasters to maximum".

Thanks for the info sir.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Below is an explanation of what's happening in the stories above if you don't want to guess for yourselves.

;)

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

In order not to be too obtuse with the information given here, I'll give some background on the two stories above. On the chance you wanted to guess what was behind the happenings in them, I have tagged them as "spoilers" here so you'll have to mouse over to see them.

I can't give too much too often like this as I don't want to give away the idea but for these I can share to hopefully get some interest in the game itself

Both stories above deal with a class of life form in the game called "Extra-Dimensional Colonizers" (EDCs).  These are beings residing in a different dimension but able to perceive and (with limitations) interact with what we would call "normal" reality.

In the first story, the particular EDC possesses the ability to manifest in normal space as a contained, controllable, electromagnetic field.  Due to its particular specialization in mentation, it also has the capability to access biological electrical systems.  In short, it can hijack your brain ways.

Doing this requires power on both ends--there is a cost to reach from one dimension to another and one cost is the requirement for energy--which increases when control or power is being used.  So when the people in the room were hijacked, power was drained from the rooms electrical system and from the thermal energy in the room--that's why the lights shorted out and the room got cold.

The shaking and convulsing happen because control is not perfect--it varies over life form types and is not always comprehensive.

The point of the pencils is simply "graphene". Graphene, when lifted off a sheet in a single molecule thick layer is an incredibly strong material and is highly conductive electrically.  As these beings are electrically driven, they are essentially going to painstakingly craft graphene "suits" (which are incredibly strong) that they can electromagnetically manipulate and move and that allow them to use electromagnetic energy as weapons and a defense.

Over time, the brains of their human hosts would burn out just like the light bulbs, so creating a more permanent form is essential for a first wave sort of infiltration--something that you can actually do in the planned game.

The second story deals with another type of EDC--gravitic.  They manipulate mass directly through gravitational control--which is extremely limited in range and its strength of effect is heavily affected by the environment it is operating in.

So a group of gravitic powered EDCs was focused on moving the rocks.  "Vision" is provided by way of detecting micro-gravity fields and focusing light with gravitational lensing (as this particular form uses vision in their own environment).  For a gravitic EDC, gravity acts as a conduit for the species' senses just as electricity does for the electromagnetic EDC.

In the story, the rocks were rolled as a distraction and while they were being blasted with cannons (which causes no actual harm to the EDC) they manipulated larger boulders into the air to use as bombs.

In time, they eventually would work on crafting mechanical battlesuits that were powered gravitationally.  Imagine an animated suit of armor made of solid metal and you get the idea.

There are thousands of species designs possible in the game achievable by combining hundreds of attributes and abilities over nearly a dozen base life form types.  These are just two examples.